


thankful

by darcylindbergh



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, Found Family, M/M, Reorienting Gratitude, Some Friendships Are Worth Risking A Turkey For, Thanksgiving, The Difficulty of Being Thankful If You're A Demon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2020-12-09
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:06:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 16,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27718603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darcylindbergh/pseuds/darcylindbergh
Summary: In which Anathema can't go back to America for one of her favourite holidays, Aziraphale offers to host a dinner, and Crowley confronts the mortifying ordeal of being a demon on a day dedicated to giving thanks.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley
Comments: 338
Kudos: 377





	1. planning

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not going home for Thanksgiving this year - I'll be joining my family via Zoom - so I wrote this to get all my feelings out about it. I have given Anathema a non-pandemic-related reason for not going home, though, so no worries; there's no pandemic in this universe, and no reason to worry about our characters gathering. There should be three chapters posted over the next three days.
> 
> This a story about all the different reasons we might have to find family where we are, instead of in our homes of origin. If you're out there this year finding your own place, for whatever reason, my heart is with you.

“Remind me why we’re doing this again.” 

Crowley threw down his pencil, rocking back in his chair and rubbing a hand over his eyes. They’d been here for hours, the detritus of their research slowly spreading across the kitchen table and spawning into piles, teetering stacks of books and hand-written notecards and loose-leaf pages printed, via miracle, from Crowley’s laptop and thin air. They’d finally started trying to take notes about an hour ago, but it was beginning to seem like Crowley was just writing down a list of everything they’d read, rather than a list of decisions they’d made. 

Aziraphale hummed, setting a cup of tea down at Crowley’s elbow and pressing a kiss to his temple before sliding back into his own chair. The tea was milky and sweet, hot enough to warm Crowley all the way down to his reptile centre, to loosen the knot of anxiety that had been building in his chest over the last few hours.

In its place rose something more familiar—the solid, living ache of love that lived under his breastbone.

It had been three years out here, in the cottage; three years of kisses to temples and wrists and everywhere else, of a shared bed and shared skin, long nights rocking together to the sound of the ocean and mornings spent dozing on the sofa in the library, of a garden that was _his_ and a home that was _theirs_ and a love that filled him up to bursting. 

Three years, and that feeling hadn’t faded, not even a little. Crowley didn’t think it ever would.

“Because,” Aziraphale said, picking up another page, “we said we would.”

“I’m a demon,” Crowley argued, more out of principal than anything else. “I can go back on my word.”

Aziraphale shot him a disapproving look, ruined by the curl of a little smile on his mouth. “You could,” he agreed, but the silence afterward said, _but you won’t._

It was _so_ annoying that he was right. 

“I’m not sure why _we_ have to be the ones doing all this stuff though,” Crowley said, changing tactics. “Couldn’t we just, you know—miracle it up? Find a place in London and order it in?” 

Aziraphale looked up again, and this time his frown was more affronted than affectionate. “Order it—Crowley, you can’t _order in_ Thanksgiving dinner. Don’t be ridiculous.”

*

It had started, innocently enough, with a trip up to Tadfield, the Saturday after Halloween. Anathema had invited them up for what she called a _monster bash_ , though she’d assured Crowley she didn’t actually know any real monsters, and really it was just about putting on silly costumes and drinking cocktails with names like Black Magic Margaritas or a Jekyll and gin.

They had gone, of course—Crowley, wearing something dashing and debonair from the 1940s, and Aziraphale in something evocatively Parisian—and it had been good to see Newt and Anathema again, and Madame Tracey and even Shadwell, though he did keep loudly saying he was there under protest. The Them had been around too, avoiding their parents and robbing the candy cauldron, bringing choice pieces to Aziraphale in exchange for prophecies he was making up on the spot, and it had, surprisingly, been a very good time. 

There was something _different_ about this group of humans, Crowley thought, something special, something that made Crowley and Aziraphale both want to linger, want to talk, want to reach out their hands and know them. 

Maybe it was that this group of humans knew them for who—for what—they really were; maybe that was just what happened when you saved the world together.

Or maybe it was just that they were all _spectacularly_ drunk. It was hard to tell.

“Mos’ demons,” Crowley had been slurring, ensconced on the loveseat with Aziraphale and a Jekyll and gin, after his fedora had been lost and the kids taken home to their beds, rambling rather incoherently to the remaining group slumped haphazardly around the sitting room. “I mean, mos’ demons are just doing the job, you know? It’s like, somebody’s got to do it, or there’d be no free will.”

“I understand,” Tracey had said wisely, nudging Shadwell’s arm like he ought to too. “If it’s not you, it’ll be someone else, so it might as well be you.”

“’ _Xactly_.”

“I’ve got free will,” Anathema had said muzzily from the floor, her head cushioned against Aziraphale’s perfectly perfect knee. “And I can’t even _use_ it. If I could use it, I’d go back to America for Thanksgiving. But _no_. My parents are going to be in Thailand instead.”

“Told you,” Newt had chimed in, from where he was laid out flat, glasses askew, Anathema’s witch hat balanced on the toes of one foot. “I’m going to cook you up a turkey. Make the whole thing. Martha Stewart spread.”

Anathema had snorted. “You can barely manage a kettle.”

“Ooh, poor lamb,” Tracey had cooed sympathetically, and then Aziraphale, who had been dozing heavily and beautifully against Crowley’s shoulder for the last fifteen minutes, had said, without even opening his eyes, “Oh, not to worry, dear girl. We’ll host. We’ll host all of you.” 

And before Crowley could so much as say, “Pfft, you don’t know how to cook a turkey either, angel,” Anathema had raised her head, eyes wide and darkly wet like a puppy’s, and said, “Oh, _would_ you? It would be just like home!” 

And that had been that.

*

Crowley didn’t have anything against Thanksgiving, per se, or at least, not anything more than he normally had against excessive consumerism, forced holiday cheer, or hostile imperialist dominion over people who were just trying to mind their own business. He’d even been to a few, the years he and Aziraphale had been at the Dowlings—although they were usually state affairs then, with evening gowns and sashes and men who smoked cigars and talked about power grabs the way most people talked about doing the shop.

It was just—Crowley was a _demon,_ and giving thanks was not really on the list of things demons did. 

He’d given it a shot, once or twice, in the years since the world hadn’t ended, but it had always felt disingenuous to him. He tried to be thankful that Armageddon hadn’t gone on after all, but that was really down to an enormous mix-up of human proportions and a stubborn eleven-year-old boy who had, by chance, lived an average life with average friends and average parents. He tried to be thankful that Aziraphale had turned out to love him back, but that was really just a matter of _them_ , wasn’t it, of a shared history and a shared story and a feeling growing in each of their own chests like ivies. 

He tried to be thankful for the cottage in the South Downs, or the sunsets they watched from the rocky beach when the summer nights went long, or the press of Aziraphale against him in the soft sheets of their bed, and just felt bitter and resentful instead. These things he loved, these things he had wanted for so long, these things he’d been denied year and year and lifetime after lifetime—these were all things She would have kept from him. 

Sitting on the roof one night, wrapped in a blanket with Aziraphale, Crowley had been trying. He’d been pointing out the stars that had been his, trying to be thankful for having made them, when Aziraphale had kissed him softly and said, _I’m sorry_ , and no one had ever said that before. 

_ I’m sorry you lost your stars _ . _I’m sorry you were thrown down. I’m sorry that this thing She called love was too fragile, too insecure, too conditional. I’m sorry._

_ I don’t need to be thankful to You _ , Crowley had prayed that night, silent and fierce, clutching Aziraphale’s hand and letting himself feel the rejection for the first time in six thousand years, finding it tempered and mellowed with age, with hope, with certainty. _I am who I am because I made myself out of the ashes. I am where I am because I took every step. I won’t be grateful that you made me do it alone._

So: Crowley didn’t have anything against Thanksgiving, not really, but he wasn’t exactly sold on the concept either. 

But Aziraphale had said they’d host, and Anathema had said it would be just like _home_ , and that, he thought, was probably enough to manage it. 

*

Which had led them here: bumbling their way through recipe cards, cookbooks, and food blogs, trying to plan a menu. 

Demons, Crowley felt very sure, should be exempt from menu planning as a legal issue; he was considering even breaking his silence with Hell to write in support of a new Bylaw. 

But then Aziraphale asked, “What do we have down so far?” and Crowley had never really been that good of a demon anyway. 

“Turkey,” he said, looking at the list he’d been writing for the better part of two hours. “Anathema sent me a recipe for pavochon, so we’re doing that, and arroz con gandules, mashed potatoes, stuffing, something called green bean casserole—sounds like something Hastur would have invented on a bad day, if you ask me—turkey gravy, mushroom gravy, cranberry sauce, tostones, brussels sprouts with that fake bacon stuff Newt likes, lentil shepherd’s pie for him too, macaroni and cheese, tofurkey with a question mark so I guess we have to decide on that or not, rolls—oh wait, we have rolls on here twice—”

“Those are two different rolls,” Aziraphale interjected. “White yeast rolls and honey wheat twist rolls.” 

“And of course there’s pumpkin pie, apple pie, vegan cheesecake, and Anathema’s bringing tembleque—”

“Tracey and Shadwell are bringing the wine and cider—”

“And the Youngs are bringing four troublemakers and board games. And salad, I think Diedre said.” 

Aziraphale pulled a face. “Is that everything?”

“You don’t think that’s enough?” Crowley stared. He wasn’t sure when they were even going to find the time to cook it all as it was, even if they started two days early, and he definitely wasn’t sure they were going to manage to eat it all. “Angel, we could feed half an army with a menu like this.” 

“Hmm.” Aziraphale shuffled through the pages again, flipping through another cookbook before he found what he was looking for. “Aha,” he said, “add that to the list, and we’ll be set.” 

Crowley rolled his eyes, but wrote down _honey-roasted root vegetables_ anyway, then sat back in his chair again and surveyed it all once more, doodling something that might have read _charcuterie board_ at the bottom when Aziraphale looked away. 

“We’re going to need a bigger kitchen,” he said.


	2. interlude: the night before

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't expect to write this chapter, but if you can't be self-indulgent for thankful Thanksgiving fic, when can you, really?

It was nighttime.

There were a few clues that tipped Crowley off on this new and concerning piece of information: first, he was in bed, where he’d gone to sleep some two or three hours before; second, it was dark outside the windows that overlooked the garden; and third, and most concerning of all, the clock on the bedside table read _3: 22 am._

This all would have been fine and usual, except that Crowley had been woken by the bright glow of an angel’s halo, and the frantic muttering of someone who was fighting a battle with anxiety and losing rather badly.

“Of all the things to forget,” Aziraphale was murmuring to himself, flipping through the pages of a book. He was so absorbed in it that he didn’t even notice Crowley rolling over under the sheets to look up at him. “Absolutely ridiculous, what _was_ I thinking—”

“Aziraphale,” Crowley said softly, and the glow went abruptly out. “What are you doing?”

“Reading,” Aziraphale squeaked.

“I can see that.” He didn’t need the light, after all; he could see the title of the book just fine in the dark. _Planning the Perfect Thanksgiving: 100 Stress Free Tips for Entertaining, Decorating, and Cooking Like a Pro_ seemed like an awfully damning title at 3:22 am. “Are you all right?”

“Of course I’m all right, why wouldn’t I be all right? I’m right as rain, dear boy.”

“Aziraphale,” Crowley said again, reaching out to curl a hand over Aziraphale’s wrist. He was pretty sure that Aziraphale had changed into his pajamas when they’d come to bed, a sensible blue-and-white striped set he delighted in, but he was back in his usual button-down and waistcoat now, the ends of a bow-tie hanging loosely from under the collar. “You’re reading about decorating for a _perfect Thanksgiving_ at three-thirty in the morning the day of. I know you’re not much of a sleeper, angel, but you’ve got to admit it looks a little suspicious from here.”

For a moment it seemed like Aziraphale might continue to try to put him off, but Crowley only kept looking at him, steady and gentle, and eventually Aziraphale crumbled. “It’s only—we forgot to plan for a tablescape tomorrow! _Tablecloths_ , Crowley, should they be cream? Natural linen? _Sage_? And I didn’t even make place cards, how will everyone know where they’re supposed to sit, and should we do candles or just something green? Candles have such a nice glow but then there is the matter of an open flame to deal with, and I’m not sure that we have enough forks to manage dinner _and_ dessert later, and—”

Crowley shifted himself up, scooting the pillows out of the way so that he could sling one arm around Aziraphale’s shoulders and pull him in close, and Aziraphale fell right into his hold, clutching back at him a little. “Hey, come on. It’s all right if we don’t have a whole tablescape, okay? It’s not like they’ve never been here before—they know what the house looks like.”

“But this is _different_ ,” Aziraphale insisted. “This is a holiday, and Anathema said if it wasn’t right it wouldn’t be like _home_ , and everything has to be—”

“It doesn’t,” Crowley cut off. He reached out and took the book from Aziraphale’s lap, banishing it to the table downstairs. “Look at me, eh?”

Aziraphale did look, and he looked a mess—curls mussed, cheeks flushed, river-blue eyes wide and worried. “It should be, though. It should be _perfect_ for them. For—for everything they are, and everything they’ve done, and—”

Crowley shook his head. “It _doesn’t_. It won’t be. And it’s going to be _fine_ , it’s going to be absolutely fine that it’s not perfect. Nobody is going to turn their nose up at whatever tablecloth you choose and refuse to sit down, except maybe me if you choose that cream number because white? While we’re eating? _Honestly_.”

Aziraphale laughed, though, and let himself melt a little further against Crowley. “I like the cream.”

“Yeah, so does Tracey’s nana.”

“I don’t see _you_ offering up any ideas for a tablescape.”

“First of all,” Crowley said, teasing at a grin, “the word _tablescape_ should be banned from this house. And second of all—we’ll go with a natural linen _runner_ , not a tablecloth, matching napkins, white plates, some soft-looking green stuff down the middle with a couple of big fat candles that won’t drip anywhere, and if you want to get really fancy we can put those tiny white pumpkins on everybody’s bread plate. All right?”

Aziraphale thought about it, his nose wrinkling the way it always did when he was trying to find fault with something. “You forgot place cards.”

“They’re family, angel, they don’t need place cards.”

“But don’t you think—”

“No, I don’t.” Crowley wrapped his arms around Aziraphale again, pulling him back down to his chest, kissing the top of his head and whispering into his curls. “You don’t have to impress them, sweetheart. You don’t have to make it perfect for them to want to be here with us.”

It was an old worry, Crowley knew. An old, well-worn impulse that still sometimes lived in the grooves of Aziraphale’s bones. _Enough_ had never been granted to Aziraphale in Heaven; he sometimes had a hard time believing that Crowley or anyone else would give it freely, would give it endlessly. Would give it with love he had done nothing to earn.

Crowley held him close, his cheek to Aziraphale’s head, and tried to help him remember he didn’t need to _earn_ anything.

“I hate it when you do that, you know,” Aziraphale said, pouting, but his breath was warm on Crowley’s neck and his shoulders had eased away some of their tension. “It’s unbearable.”

“When I do what? Have impeccable tablescaping skills?”

“When you pinpoint exactly what I need to hear and make me hear it.”

“Oh, that.” Crowley smiled, and coaxed Aziraphale’s face up so he could kiss his cheek, the tip of his upturned nose, the downturned line of his mouth. “Suppose you’ll just have to live with your hate, then, because I don’t plan to stop.”

“You’re horrible,” Aziraphale agreed, kissing Crowley back a little more firmly, and then again, a little more deeply, hooking a finger in between two of the buttons on his pajama shirt. The button came undone, and then the next after it did too. “You’re a wretch. A perfectly foul fiend, haunting my every step.”

“You’ll never be rid of me,” Crowley promised, and kissed him down to the pillows, rearranging them together under the covers. “You want to tell me why you’re fully dressed at three-thirty in the morning, by the way?”

Aziraphale’s hand had moved on from Crowley’s buttons, and was currently investigating the long length of a thigh underneath the waistband. “Thought I’d get up and get a head-start on some of the appetizers. And thought maybe we should have had another apple pie, just in case— _oh—”_

Crowley looked up from the spot he’d just nipped on Aziraphale’s collarbone, the waistcoat already undone and the shirt on its way out as well. “I’m no apple pie,” he said, insinuating his hand somewhere very warm, “but I think I can make a better offer than the cold lonely kitchen at this time of morning.”

“Please,” Aziraphale gasped, and that was the last thing anybody said for a long while.


	3. the first thanks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is a brief scene in the second part of this chapter in which Arthur Young carves a turkey in some detail. It should be pretty readily apparent where that paragraph is, so if you skip down to "It looked--good" you should be all set.

The table had been set.

The turkey had been rubbed, stuffed, and roasted.

The apple pies had been made—two of them, to assuage the remnants of Aziraphale’s fears, and Crowley had even snapped a whole extra oven into the kitchen just to make sure they’d have room for it all—and the charcuterie board set out. A games table had appeared in the sitting room, all the drinks accoutrements even Madame Tracey could hope for had appeared with a bar cart, and there was even a large paper turkey wearing a Puritan’s capotain hat stuck to the wall of the sitting room, much to Crowley’s chagrin.

They were as ready as anybody had ever been for Thanksgiving dinner, which of course meant that Aziraphale was fussing.

“I’m not fussing,” he said, when Crowley pointed it out, standing at the window and watching the drive intently, turning the ring on his little finger around and around. “I’m just—waiting.”

Crowley hummed sceptically, slipping his arms around Aziraphale’s waist from behind to grab his hands, resting his chin on Aziraphale’s shoulder. “Your waiting is going to wear the skin off that finger if you’re not careful.”

“It’s just that if they’re late the turkey will dry out, and I don’t fancy ruining dinner with a dry turkey.”

“They’re not going to be late.” In fact, Anathema had just texted him that they were about ten minutes out, and either way there was nothing to be worried about because Crowley had had a _very_ stern chat with the turkey before putting it in the oven. It was not going to be dry. “Besides, I’m sure lots of people are used to dry turkey. Practically a tradition in its own right, eh?”

Aziraphale did not see the humour in this. “Then what if we’ve gotten everything wrong? What if it’s not the right _kind_ of Thanksgiving?”

“It’s _our_ Thanksgiving. It doesn’t have to be just like an American Thanksgiving. It’ll be—”

“—If you say it I swear I will kick you—”

“—Ineffable.”

“That’s supposed to be _my_ line, _”_ Aziraphale pouted, but then he sighed and turned in Crowley’s arms, kissing his cheek. “I suppose it _would_ be a little alarming if Anathema regularly had an angel and a demon over to dinner.”

“See? It’s a good thing that it’ll be different.”

“I suppose.” He arranged his face into something rather stern, then. “Still. No pranking Adam’s parents, please.”

Crowley faked a groan. “Not even a little prank?”

“ _No._ We’ve already messed with their minds enough, don’t you think?”

They had, a little, but it had been necessary. There just weren’t very many ways to say, _hello, we bonded with your son during Armageddon and since he’s the Antichrist we feel it’s important that he have access to occult—and ethereal—mentors, just in case the world should try to end again._ No, it had been better to just slot themselves very carefully in to Arthur and Dierdre Young’s memories, with Adam’s permission, as long-time family friends and be done with it.

Of course, that had been three years ago, and these days Crowley suspected they would count as long-time family friends in their own right. He liked Arthur and Dierdre. They were weird, but they were human, and they loved Adam wholeheartedly—a love that had been powerful enough to save the world.

The fact that Arthur als loved his 1959 Morris Traveller nearly as much as Crowley loved his Bentley was merely a bonus.

“Fine,” Crowley conceded, pretending to be horribly put upon around his smirk, “but I want a better kiss than that for my troubles.”

Aziraphale obliged.

He was still busy obliging three minutes later when the doorbell finally rang, and a scandalized fourteen-year-old voice followed only a moment later from outside the window, “ _Eugh_ , they’re _snogging_!”

*

If Crowley had expected this to play out like some slightly dressed-down version of the Dowling’s stuffy Thanksgiving, of uptight Sitting Around To Raise A Glass in Performative Thanks, he was about to be surprised.

This wasn’t pageantry. This was _chaos_.

Food appeared out of nowhere, produced by Anathema and Deirdre as if they’d been hiding half the shop in the hampers they’d lugged in, and Madame Tracey shoved a pear and rosemary cocktail into Crowley’s hand before she even should have had time to mix it. Newt was already on his other shoulder, showing him, very carefully, an ancient mobile phone that Anathema had found him that wouldn’t give up the ghost immediately at his touch; the Them were everywhere, and so were the throw pillows, and Shadwell was already going on about hoodlums and witches, and it was loud and brash and happy and Crowley was—

Fine, actually. Better than fine.

The cottage on the South Downs was never too terribly quiet, filled up with conversations and debates, the music records playing and the books read aloud and the occasional thunderous rant delivered to the back garden, but it wasn’t usually noisy like this. This was _loud_ , shouts and gossip and _look at this_ and _no, Sergeant, it’s not magic,_ and _Anathema, have you heard_ , and _Arthur, stop picking at the that before we’re ready._

It should have been overwhelming, and a little annoying, and it instead it was—

Fine. Better than fine.

Crowley watched them all for a moment, then caught himself smiling at nothing and ducked back into the kitchen to get the last few things out of the oven before he could do something really embarrassing.

There was just one problem. Or rather, several problems, taking up all their counterspace in their casserole dishes and bowls. He was missing something—oh, that was in the second oven, wasn’t it, and it would fit just there if he moved the brussels sprouts—and those had to go on the other end, with the rest of the vegan things, so that everyone could tell—and if he moved over the potatoes and— _Satan_ , he almost set his hand right into the macaroni and cheese—would anyone notice if he just miracled a bit of the burn off those rolls—

Aziraphale popped in after a few moments, immediately standing directly where Crowley needed him not to stand, fussing. “Need help, darling? Oh, here, let me—”

“No, just get out of the way, angel—”

“You can’t set that there without a trivet—”

“So either put a trivet down or move so I can do it myself—”

“Crowley, you can’t do _miracles_ , there are humans here—”

“Need help carving up that bird?” Arthur interrupted, looking in.

Crowley and Aziraphale froze, and both realised Crowley wasn’t wearing an oven mitts while holding the roaster that had just come out of the oven at the exact same moment. They had a brief but silent argument over how not to draw attention to it, and finally Aziraphale tossed a trivet down onto the counter and hurried out, taking care to stand in Arthur’s line of sight so Crowley could put the roaster down as unsuspiciously as possible.

“Erm,” Crowley answered, glad to have his kitchen emptied but uncertain about the turkey. “Have you ever done this before?”

Arthur shook his head, rolling up his sleeves. “Should be just like a chicken though, right?”

Crowley didn’t know if it was just like a chicken or not, but Arthur seemed happy enough to take the lead. He showed Crowley first how to make the gravy while the meat rested, taking care to teach him just how to get the consistency right, and then walked him through where to make the right cuts, how to separate the joints, setting aside the wishbone to dry on Adam’s particular request. They chatted easily as they worked about a new wax he’d tried on the car and making vague noises about maybe going up to a car show in the spring that would love to see the Bentley, if Crowley wanted to come along.

“There,” Arthur said eventually, sliding one last section of meat—juicy, as promised—onto the platter. “Think that’ll do it.”

It looked—good, actually, Crowley realised. The turkey was prettily arranged, the gravy had been poured into its boat, the rest of the dishes neatly lined up on the counter so everyone could fill their own plates in a line. Proper feasting had really gone out of style in the last few hundred years, but Crowley remembered it being a good time; maybe Americans were onto something after all.

“Looks great,” he said, finishing up washing his hands and wiping them on a tea towel. “I think we’re ready then. Thanks for the help.”

And then he stopped.

He turned, looked at Arthur. Arthur was saying something like, _no problem, mate,_ or, _I’ll just get the kids to wash up_ , or, _don’t mind if I sneak some of this turkey_ , but Crowley didn’t hear him.

Instead Crowley said it again, slower this time, rolling the word on his tongue. “Thanks.”

It wasn’t the first time Crowley had ever said it, of course—he was a demon, not an animal—but it felt different on Thanksgiving. He’d always thought about _giving thanks_ in some vague, higher authority sort of way, as if he owed gratitude to Her for whatever hand she might have had in allowing him the things he’d been so desperate for, but this wasn’t for Her.

In this moment, it was only for Arthur.

He didn’t have to be thankful _for_ , he realised. He could be thankful _to_ , and that—that was a worthwhile giving of thanks.

“Not at all,” Arthur was saying, now giving Crowley the sort of side-eye glance he’d first perfected fourteen years ago, the night Adam had been delivered to a nunnery outside Tadfield in a basket. It was a look that said, _You’re being weird, but I think it’s best if I don’t notice_ , and Crowley loved him for it.

“Thank you,” he said again, more seriously, and this time he _meant_ everything he’d never said, everything he hoped was already understood: _thank you for being here, thank you for being the dad you are and the friend you’ve become. Thank you for knowing how to carve a bird. Thank you for taking care of that beautiful car out in the drive._

_Thank you for accepting us._

Arthur stared at him, clearly at a loss. “You’re welcome?”

Crowley nodded, feeling a little unmoored. He tried to gather himself back up together, clearing his throat and clapping his hands together. “Yeah, exactly. Right, well, let’s get everyone to the table, shall we?”

*

“All right, don’t shove, there’s plenty for everyone—”

“Anathema should go first, it’s her holiday—”

“Nae, lad, the elders ought to go first—”

“Speak for yourself, Mister S, I’m no elder—”

“Tostones, oh gosh _—”_

“Newt, dear, the vegan things are on the far side, everything past the rolls, and the butter in the blue dish is yours—“

“White meat is on the near end, everyone, dark meat is on the other—”

“What’s in this rice—”

“Oh, another spoonful of that I think, there we go—”

“Darling, you forgot the carrots—”

“Hang on, everyone, I forgot the carrots—”

“Brian, desserts are for _after,_ keep your fingers out of there please—”

“Here we go, carrots, can you hand me another serving thing—I don’t know, tongs, maybe—”

“Oh, wait, hon, there’s bacon in that—”

“No, it’s fake bacon, go ahead—”

“What’s in this red jelly thing—”

“Pass me a roll, Dierdre, there’s a love—”

“Adam, put a vegetable on that plate please—”

“Potatoes are a vegetable—”

“A _green_ vegetable—”

“What’s in this shepherd’s pie—”

“Where’s the silverware—”

“On the table, dear—”

“Did you get enough turkey, down there, there’s lots left—”

“Pass the macaroni spoon, will you—”

“Crowley?” Aziraphale said. “Are you all right?”

Crowley startled, looking over; he’d been watching everyone make their way through the kitchen, plates in hand, fighting over this roll or that scoop of casserole. Anathema had indeed gone first, ushered to the front of the line by Pepper and Adam, who had spent too many years ignoring R.P. Tyler, Chairman of the Tadfield Resident’s Association, to be at all intimidated by the likes of Shadwell, and she’d been practically tearful over the arroz con gandules. There was enough for seconds, and probably even thirds, and even Newt had a plate heavy and filled to the edges.

It made something warm and thick take up residence in Crowley’s chest, to watch them. To see them laugh, and pass around food he and Aziraphale had made, tossing rolls from one end of the kitchen to the other, without fear or worry or stress. He pressed a hand to his chest, and reveled in the way it ached: just right.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he said, and meant it. He was fine. More than fine. “Get everything you wanted, angel?”

Aziraphale smiled up at him, as though he could read Crowley’s mind. He pressed a quick kiss to the corner of his mouth, and empty plate into Crowley's hands. “Everything and more,” he said softly. “It looks wonderful, darling. Don’t forget to fill a plate for yourself too.”

“Just making sure everyone has enough. I’ll be along in a minute, yeah?”

“Come on, Mister Crowley,” Pepper called out from somewhere around Dierdre’s salad. “Get in line before he starts snogging you again.”

Aziraphale laughed, and patted Crowley’s arse just to show her up. “You heard her. Before I start snogging you again.”

“Not much of a deterrent, is it?” Crowley said, waggling his eyebrows, but he went.


	4. practice makes perfect

The table groaned under the weight of all the empty plates; a dozen bellies groaned under the weight of everything that had been cleared off them.

“Eugh,” Brian said, flopped out on the sitting room floor.

“Eugh,” Pepper agreed. “I think we ate too much.”

“Actually,” Wensleydale said, “I think we ate exactly as much as we’re supposed to on Thanksgiving.”

Adam, who was bent dramatically over the arm of the sofa, stretching his stomach out, gave a sleepy, lazy grin at them all. “Best. Holiday. Ever.”

No one bothered to disagree.

*

It’s occasionally a difficult thing, being friends and mentors to fourteen-year-olds.

At eleven, Adam and the Them had been mostly mischief and ideals, still enveloped in their daydreams and games and not yet quite aware of all the gaps in their knowledge. It was that innocence—the belief, for lack of knowing anything else, that the day really could be saved as easily as all that—that saved the day, as easily as all that.

At fourteen, Adam and his friends were becoming more _aware_ , aware of injustices, aware of power, aware of the movement of information and money, just beginning to put together the threads of how the world worked. Aware of what they didn’t know, of what they couldn’t do. Aware of how humanity before them had failed to live up to those same eleven-year-old ideals.

Combined with the teenagery aspects of being teenagers, there was plenty of angst to go around.

“I don’t understand,” Adam told Crowley, meandering around Aziraphale’s library while his parents were involved in playing cards with Madame Tracey and Shadwell, “why it had to happen when I was only _eleven_. I was an idiot when I was eleven.”

Crowley tried not to laugh. “That idiot eleven-year-old did save the world, though.”

“Yeah, but I could have changed things. Made it better.” He gave Crowley a sidelong look, picking up a book and trading it for another on the shelf. “I don’t know how you can stand to just sit out here with Aziraphale, keeping to yourselves.”

This was a familiar refrain these days. Adam’s fear that he had wasted the bulk of his power, that he had given up his ability to change the world in a meaningful way, threatened to paralyse him entirely; where the fear left spaces, the guilt filled him, and that guilt made him a little angry, sometimes. A little resentful and bitter that Crowley and Aziraphale, who could still do their miracles, didn’t spend their afternoons miracling new forests into existence and destroying multibillionaires.

“We’ve spent six thousand years messing humans about,” Crowley pointed out. “And it has never really made that much of a difference, if I’m honest. Maybe I helped Gutenberg invent the printing press; maybe Aziraphale accidentally started the Hundred Years’ War. We might’ve improved some things, but we ruined others. It just sort of evened out in the end.”

“Aziraphale started the Hundred Years’ War?”

“Like I said, wasn’t his fault, he was just going through a genealogy phase. The point is—people are just, you know, people. You might give them an idea, but you never really know what’s going to come after it.”

“Couldn’t you just say, all right, do this, and follow it through this way?”

“Maybe,” Crowley said, and he tried to be as gentle as he could about the next part of the answer, “but we try to preserve as much free will as we can. We can plant an idea, but what they do with it has to be up to them.”

Adam was quiet for a long time, then, taking the chiding reminder as gracefully as any teenager could and absently rearranging one of Aziraphale’s bookshelves to avoid looking at Crowley. That was all right; Aziraphale did much the same thing, when he needed a moment.

It was also all right that Adam was rearranging the books so the first letters of the authors’ last names spelled out cuss words. Crowley couldn’t wait to see Aziraphale’s face when he noticed.

“So how do we change things?” Adam finally asked, slotting in Kipling to form _fuck_. “All these things about the world, they’re really crap. How do we fix it? Why isn’t _everyone_ trying to fix it?”

Crowley shrugged. “Everyone’s just trying to be a person, yeah? Take your mum, for instance. She doesn’t do anything on the every day to save, say, the whales, but do you think she’s a bad person?”

Henry Irving slid onto the shelf, forming _p-i_ in a word Crowley strongly suspected would become _piss_. “Of course not.”

“Why not?”

“Well, she’s busy, for one. She’s got me and my dad and my sister to take care of, and our house. And she works a couple days a week at the primary school, helping with the littler kids. She’s got a church group, too, that she does stuff with, checking in on old people in the village and setting up bake sales and things. She—” Adam paused, a Jonathan Swift in hand. “It’s not that she doesn’t care about the whales, it’s just that she has got loads of other things she’s doing.”

“She’s a person trying to live her life.”

“Yeah. Which I suppose means—most people are just people, trying to live their lives.”

“Sure, exactly. And some people live lives dedicates to whales—which is where I suspect Pepper’s headed—and some people live lives trying to become more powerful and wealthy—like, I don’t know, Rupert Murdoch—and _most_ people just do things like work in schools and go to church and do some good things and some bad things and just kind of see how life shakes out.”

Adam paused, surveying the bookshelf; Crowley did a subtle miracle to tilt a Charles Sedley out of place. “Like studying chartered accountancy.”

Crowley grimaced. “Okay, well, let’s not get too wild here.”

They both laughed, and Adam snagged the Sedley and slid it into place next to the Swift. “So what you’re really saying is, if I want things to get better, I should do good in school, get involved, help others.” He wrinkled his nose, giving Crowley a look that expressed how useful he thought that was.

“I know it sounds like rot,” Crowley agreed, “but they say it because it’s true. If you want to change the world, Adam, you can do it. You just gotta do it the way everybody else does.”

Adam sighed, and abandoned the bookshelf, and the next moment he’d wrapped his arms around Crowley’s waist, bluntly hanging on in the shy, won’t-look way only a fourteen-year-old could when he wanted a hug and didn’t want to admit to it. “You give terrible advice for a demon,” he complained into Crowley’s chest. “Thought you were supposed to be all doom and gloom.”

Crowley tucked Adam in against him, squeezing just hard enough to make him feel solid for a moment, safe and whole. “If you wanted doom and gloom, you should’ve asked Sergeant Shadwell.”

“Aziraphale’s a bad influence on you,” Adam said, the sound of a grin in his voice, and he squeezed Crowley one more time and let go. “S’nice to have you guys around.”

“You’re not awful yourself, most of the time,” Crowley allowed, and then, because he could and because Adam was there and because it was the sort of thing he’d thought a hundred times before, he said, “Thanks.”

Adam looked up at him. “For what?”

_For being yourself. For being the Antichrist, full of love. For still hugging me, even though you’re a Cool Teenager now. For caring so much about the world. For reminding me what it’s like, and why it’s worth it, to try to be better than how we’re made._

“For being a little shit about Aziraphale’s bookshelves,” he finally settled on, and then, thinking about other boys that had hugged him before, and other Thanksgivings that could have used a little more love in them, he added, “You know, I might know someone who would really understand what it’s like, I think. To almost be the Antichrist. Someone your own age. Could set you two up to chat, if you’re interested.”

Adam arched an eyebrow, looking exactly like his mum did when she suspected someone had been up to no good but just hadn’t figured out what it was yet.

“Yeah, sure. What’s their name?”

*

Back in the sitting room, desserts were already well underway—Shadwell and Brian each looked like they had half a pie apiece, Newt had an enormous slab of vegan cheesecake on his plate, and Madame Tracey was nursing what looked like a brandy and “a teensy slice of everything, lovey.”

They found Aziraphale in the kitchen, his own fork full of apple pie, standing guard over two plates. “One for Adam,” he’d said, pointing at one, which disappeared off into the hands of its intended recipient before anyone could even say _please_ , “and the other for you.”

Crowley slid the last plate over to himself, leaning in to kiss the taste of apple off Aziraphale’s mouth. “Guardian of the Eastern Gate never sleeps, eh?”

“I know my duties,” Aziraphale grinned. “Adam all right?”

“Yeah, ‘course. Although,” Crowley’s grin turned a little wicked, and he leaned in again, not quite close enough to touch but almost, “he says you’re a bad influence on me, angel.”

“Flirt,” Aziraphale accused, and he closed the distance with another kiss. “You want a bad influence, darling, you only need to ask.”

There was a strangled sort of noise at the doorway, then—Newt, apparently having come already to scavenge the rest of the cheesecake. “Sorry,” he said, “I can just—”

“Not at all,” Crowley said, taking a step back, letting Aziraphale pat his cheek and slide past him, back to cards with Madame Tracey. Crowley hoped he wasn’t betting anything _too_ big; Tracey was a card shark when the moment took her. “How’s the cheesecake?”

“S’good,” Newt said, prying loose another huge piece. “Thanks, by the way. For the vegan stuff. Mum tries, when we go home there, but she’s not really sure what counts as vegan except for raw vegetables.”

Crowley huffed a laugh, taking another bite of his pie. “No one goes hungry in Aziraphale’s house. It’s against the law, I think.”

“Still. S’good.” Newt leaned up against the counter across from Crowley, digging into his dessert with relish. “You and Aziraphale doing all right?”

“Yeah, ‘course. You and Anathema?”

“Yeah, I think so. We’re going to her parents for Christmas, they’re supposed to be back from Thailand next week.”

Crowley looked at him, shifting from heel to heel against the counter. “Any big plans?” he asked carefully.

“I might—” Newt started, and faltered, and then everything just seemed to pour out of him, like he’d only barely been keeping it in and just needed to be untied enough to let it all loose. “I might—I’m not really sure, but I might—it’s just, we’ve been together three years, you know, and I don’t want to be without her, so I thought, but I’m not really sure—how did you know?”

They were a good match, Crowley thought. Anathema’s certainty, and Newt’s hesitation; Anathema’s faith, and Newt’s solidity. Newt pushed at her to ask questions like _why,_ and Anathema pushed back with _why not,_ and they’d made it through things already that would put most couples out in the cold.

“ _I_ knew about thirty seconds after I met him,” Crowley said, determined not to blush. “Took him a few millennia to catch up, but we made it in the end.”

Newt nodded as if this all made perfect sense, which was one of the things Crowley liked about Newt. Perhaps he’d been conditioned by the repeated failure of electronics to do what he asked them to, but either way, he was extremely difficult to surprise.

“I think I knew after about a year,” Newt said. “That she was it. I’d wondered, you know? If she was just in it because Agnes had predicted it. But she had that bit of trouble with her visa, do you remember?”

Crowley did remember, mostly because it had been Aziraphale’s miracle that had fixed it.

“And she was so upset when she got back, and she came right to me, crying, and just—I dunno, just sort of held on. Like I was the rock in the storm, keeping her safe for a moment. Like I was what made sense, when nothing else did. That’s when I knew, because she’s like that to me, you know? She makes sense. Even when she doesn’t make sense, she makes sense. You know what I mean?”

What a _sap_. Crowley loved them both to pieces.

“Yeah,” he said. “I know exactly what you mean.”

“Do you think—if I ask, do you think?”

“Yeah, I do,” Crowley reassured him. “You should ask. She’ll love it.”

Newt grinned, suddenly almost giddy with the excitement of it, and he pulled out that ancient mobile to show Crowley some pictures of the ring he’d picked out—perfect for Anathema, Crowley thought, an antique Victorian job in gold, with black enamel details and a diamond so big it could take somebody’s eye out—and also an extremely retro black-and-white version of the game _Snake_ , which delighted Crowley to no end.

“Hey,” Crowley said, when Newt had pocketed the mobile again and loaded up another slice of cheesecake on his plate, with a second slice of pumpkin pie for Anathema, because he might as well and because he was getting really good at this, and most of all, because Newt deserved to hear it, “Thanks.”

_Thanks for trusting me. Thanks for telling me. Thanks for never blinking when we are what we are, and for believing us every step of the way, for challenging us and for showing us all how to do things another way._

And Newt, being Newt, just smiled, and toasted Crowley with a forkful of cheesecake, and said, “Thanks to you too.”


	5. it gets easier

There was something unexpectedly warm, Crowley thought, about having a house full of people.

It should have been annoying. Teenagers crawling all over the sitting room, interrupting the card games Madame Tracey was winning one after the other, Shadwell proselytizing about witchfinding to anyone who wandered too close, Anathema offering palm readings just to irritate Shadwell: it was loud and it was ridiculous and it should have been obnoxious.

It wasn’t. It was loud and it was ridiculous and it made his cheeks flush and chest ache and it was—it was—

Crowley had never had a family before. Not really.

In Heaven, before, he had been one of many; in Hell, after, he had been one alone. The Host and the Horde had both offered a sense of belonging in return for loyalty, in return for obligations and oaths, but Crowley knew now that wasn’t what family was about.

This was.

This was noise and shouting and laughing, teasing and showing off, close and familiar, intimate and affectionate; this was knowing where to slot in, where his own space was waiting for him to slip in, navigating bodies and pauses and conversations and jokes like a ship coasting through charted stars. This was being beckoned forward, being looked to, being asked after. Being part of.

This was home, Crowley thought, and sometimes families are found instead of made.

This one—loud and obnoxious, piling dishes into his sink and curling up in front of old films on the telly, curled around one another, shouting back and forth over whether Christmas magic made Santa Claus a witch—was his.

*

“How are you, duckie?”

Tracey slid into the chair next to Crowley’s at the table, where he’d been nursing the dregs of a cocktail for the better part of half an hour, watching everyone as they began to settle for the evening, dozing off one-by-one in front of the movie as Aziraphale subtly miracled blankets and pillows into existence to pass round. “You look a little lost, over here.”

Crowley shook his head, giving up his empty glass for the tall ice water she’d brought him. “Nah. Just—enjoying the ambience.”

She smiled, wry and knowing. “You’re exhausted, aren’t you?”

“Beat,” Crowley admitted, exhaling hard. “Feel like the run up to this was worse than bloody Armageddon. Aziraphale almost built us a whole new house just for this, you know. I almost had to hire Gordon Ramsey to make sure we’d all have something to eat.”

“Just as worth it, though, I expect.”

“A bit,” he said, which was as close as he was going to get to saying _every minute of it, yes._

Tracey had been something of a surprise to Crowley, after the end of the world. He would never, in a million years, admit to having been jealous—that she could carry Aziraphale, where he couldn’t; that she could be what Aziraphale needed, in the moment Aziraphale needed most, when Crowley himself would have destroyed him—but it had perhaps taken him a while to warm up.

It turned out that Tracey had just enough patience, and also a little too much understanding, to wait for him to come round. Crowley supposed that was a side-effect of having had an angel in her brain.

They sat in silence for a while. Tracey was easy to sit with, in silence, and Crowley hadn’t expected that. She could be so full of chatter, an endless fountain of words and jokes and performances, but when it was just the two of them, the silence held the weight between them instead, and Crowley found that his thoughts tended to find focus.

Right now he was focused on the wavering edges of his vision, and the glass of water in his hand, and the sight of Aziraphale, sitting in his armchair with Pepper and Wensleydale leaning against his shins, sighing happily at some sappy ending to the film on-screen.

“He was worried, you know,” Tracey said softly. “That you wouldn’t take to it, all this.”

Crowley looked at her. “Take to what?”

Her gaze was impenetrable, and Crowley wondered—not for the first time—whether she really could read minds. “To this. If you’d want this: cosy little house on the Downs, full of humans who’ll grow old and die in the blink of an eye.” She tilted her head, studying him carefully. “That you wouldn’t take to him, like this.”

“To him?” Crowley scoffed. “I took to him the moment I saw him. Like a duck to water. What was there to worry about?”

“It wasn’t ever like this, though, was it? Domestic and the like. _Retired_ , as it were. You two have had such an adventurous life together, with your secrets, the little double-cross of the Arrangement. Always getting away with things, you were, pushing at the rules. And this—” she gestured at the cottage around them, at the home he and Aziraphale had built together, at the days they spent laughing and the nights they spent breathless— “you have to admit, it’s just a bit different. He wasn’t sure you’d take to it.”

“Being—retired?”

Tracey gave him a look that said she thought he was being particularly obtuse. “Being _loved.”_

Crowley stared back at her. He feels like his ribcage being crushed, and his eyes dart to Aziraphale in the armchair, folded up under a blanket, humming along to the opening credits of the next film, almost glowing in the low lights of the evening. “He—didn’t know I loved him?”

Tracey shook her head, her little amused laugh tinkling between them. “Not that, he knew _that_. But wanting’s a different thing than having, isn’t it?”

It’s an old, familiar fear, and Crowley’s heart sinks to realise that Aziraphale had felt it too, all those years they had been holding each other at arms’ length, loving each other with caveats and swallowed words, admissions that were never said and needs that were never met. Knowing that Aziraphale loved him, _of course_ Aziraphale loved him, had loved him from the moment he’d walked down the church aisle in 1941, had loved him from the moment he’d appeared, devil-may-care, in the dungeons of the Bastille, or maybe even before that, standing among the crowds at the Globe, packed into a sold-out audience, or before—

Crowley had known. He’d _always_ known.

But knowing and believing were different things, just like wanting and having, and Crowley was a demon with doubts etched into his very bones.

“And now?” Crowley croaks, watching the light of the telly play over Aziraphale’s face. “He knows now, doesn’t he?”

Tracey covers Crowley’s hand with hers, smiling fondly, reassuringly. “Do you?”

_Do you know, how much you’re loved? Do you believe it now?_

He looks around himself. At Tracey’s hand on his, delicate and gentle; at the glass of water she’d brought him, after sousing him with pear and rosemary cocktails all night. At the details of the cottage, worn and familiar after three years in it, making it theirs, expanded to make room for people in their lives. At the abandoned dessert plates, and the stupid paper turkey pinned to the wall, the detritus of a celebration held for no reason other than to make someone feel like home.

At their guests, strewn around the sitting room and bathed in the light of the telly, warm and drowsy, fed and comfortable, each of them loved in their own way, each of them wanted for themselves—his _family_.

And in the middle of it all, Aziraphale himself, feeling the weight of Crowley’s gaze on him and turning to look, to flush and smile, laugh lines fanning out from his eyes, and every inch of him poured trust and want and hope between them, a promise and a vow. Faith that Crowley sees him, and loves him; faith that Crowley knows he is seen, and loved back.

Crowley holds his gaze until Aziraphale turns away, settling back into his chair with a curl to his lips, satisfied.

“Yes,” Crowley tells Tracey, softly and then louder, wondering if he’s only just started realised it now. “Yes. I—” he must look like a fool, wide-eyed and surprised, but he can’t seem to get a grip on himself— “Thank you.”

_Thank you for keeping him safe when I couldn’t. Thank you for letting him in, and for bringing him back to me. Thank you for the cocktails, and the mindreadings, though don’t get too used to it, and for believing that we’ll all be happy._

_I’m starting to believe it too._

Tracey only patted his hand, though, and sat with him in silence.

*

“Well,” Deirdre said finally, yawning against Arthur’s shoulder and looking over at the pile of teenagers on the floor, “I think we ought to be off before we all fall asleep on your floors.”

Brian, still sprawled on the rug, snored loudly in emphasis.

“You’re welcome to stay,” Aziraphale offered softly, no doubt already springing guest rooms from nothing, but Deirdre shook her head.

“Church tomorrow,” she explained, and Adam, the last of the kids still awake on the floor, had met Crowley’s gaze with such deadpanned acceptance of his fate that Crowley nearly choked on his drink trying not to laugh.

There was a slow, sleepier chaos then, the shaking awake of grumpy teenagers, the finding of lost shoes, the division of leftovers. Crowley and Aziraphale had insisted that no one else touch the dishes—they’d miracle them later, no sense in wasting time on them now—but Crowley still had to chase Deirdre away from the sink a few times.

“I just hate to leave you with the mess,” she protested as he shuffled her out of the kitchen.

“Don’t worry about it,” Crowley told her. “I’m going to flirt with Aziraphale over them later.”

That seemed to have the desired effect, because Deirdre said, “ _Oh_ ,” and winked, and settled herself with sorting out the decks of cards still strewn around the table.

The Them had lined up by the door, their coats tossed haphazardly over them and shoes in hand instead of on their feet, yawning. Only Adam looked entirely awake, content to lean against the walls with his friends, surrounded by their heavy heads.

“Dad’s gone out to put the hampers in the boot,” he said quietly, so as not to disturb any of the rest of them.

“Did you all get everything? No games left behind, no jumpers left anywhere?”

“Yes, mum.”

“Yes, Mrs Young.”

“Mmhmm.”

There was only silence from the last quarter, Brian having fallen back to sleep against Pepper’s shoulder, but Deirdre seemed satisfied. “You do all have to put your shoes on, though. Come on, it’s cold out.”

The kids groaned, but moved sluggishly nonetheless; Wensley shook at Brian until he moved of his own accord, shoving his feet down into his trainers without opening his eyes.

“I’ll get them in the car,” Crowley offered, looking up as Arthur came back in. He was still missing his own coat and scarf, and Aziraphale was no where to be seen, which generally meant he was plotting some kind of take-home gift. “Did you start it?”

Arthur shook his head. “Don’t like leaving the keys with these lot in it.”

He gave up the keys to Crowley enough though, with Crowley’s promise to sit in the driver’s seat and get things warmed up a bit for them, and Crowley chivvied the Them out the door just as Deirdre said, in the other room, “Oh, you shouldn’t have.”

The Morris Traveller was a smart little car, not really big enough for two adults and four kids but certainly willing enough and sturdy enough to be subject to some determination. Crowley lead the kids out and slid into the driver’s seat as they piled into the back, and if he did a minor miracle to make the backseat seem far larger inside than it should have been judging by the outside, that was nobody’s business but his. Arthur would certainly never notice.

The car came to life easily under his hands, and he had always liked the way older cars rumbled through their frames. The Traveller didn’t hold a candle to his girl, of course, but she was a far sight better than any modern car.

“You lot all say goodbye to Aziraphale?” Crowley asked, looking up at the kids in the rear view.

“Yes.”

“Mmhmm.”

“He gave us candy boxes,” Pepper said sleepily, in the sort of voice a child used to describe a dream. “Chocolates, and peppermints, and all kinds of stuff.”

“And you said goodbye to Anathema? Happy Thanksgiving?”

“Mmm.”

“She said _thanks for the turkey day_.”

“Americans are so weird.”

“Do you do magic tricks like Aziraphale does?” Brian asked, his eyes still closed against Wensley’s shoulder.

Crowley huffed. “Absolutely not. I do proper magic.”

“Do us a magic trick?”

“Oh, just one, go on—”

“Please, Crowley—

“You lot haven’t even appreciated the roomy backseat yet, why should I do another—”

“Oh, we do—”

“ _Look_ at how much room we have back here, we could fit a whole extra person in—”

“ _Please_ , Crowley—”

“Fine.” Crowley made a big show of considering the options. It ought to be something marginally demonic, he felt sure of, there would be no living it down if he went the candy route as well. He had a reputation to uphold, after all. He pulled a miracle up from Below, snapping his fingers as he did so. Hard, heavy drops landed into each of the kids’ pockets, and they each reached into pull out pound coins.

“There you go,” he told them all gleefully. “A whole pound. Don’t go spending it all in one place, eh?”

Another barrage of questions floated from the backseat to the front about his powers and the limits or lack thereof, but eventually they subsided, lolling back in their seats just pleased as punch just to have seen a real magic trick. Fourteen, the lot of them, and every one still a child a heart, Crowley thought. He hoped they never lost that spark of magic in them.

The door to the cottage opened, and Deirdre and Arthur stepped out into the night, carrying bags no doubt laden with little miracles of Aziraphale’s own.

“All right, you lot,” Crowley said, popping open the driver’s side door. “You behave yourselves, all right?” A chorus of _yes_ and _mmhm_ sounded from the back. “But not too behaved. Can’t have that, yeah?” Another round of _no_ and _‘course not_ went through the car.

“Bye, Crowley,” they all said, as he shuffled out of the car. “Bye bye bye bye bye bye bye.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Crowley answered back, trying not to grin, and then he added, quick and quietlike, “Look, thanks, all right?”

_Thanks for being kids. Thanks for believing in magic. Thanks for being there for Adam, and for thinking I’m still kind of cool, and for not asking for more money. And thanks for—for growing up. For putting all your love back into the world._

“What for?” Wensley asked, but Adam shook his head.

“I’ll tell you all when we get home,” he answered, as if he’d heard Crowley’s own thoughts. Maybe he had.

Crowley waved at them all one more time, unbearably fond, miracled the pound coins into ten pound notes for them to find later, and shut the door behind him.

*

“They all asleep?” Arthur asked.

“Almost. Will be before you hit the end of the road, I think.”

Deirdre stopped to put a hand on Crowley’s arm. “We’re so glad we could come,” she said, and it had taken Crowley some getting used to—that particular brand of easy politeness, as if Crowley were just like any of her church friends. “We’ll host for Christmas, all right?”

“It’s no trouble,” Crowley assured her. “Aziraphale likes it, having you all around.”

She gave him a look, the sort of look mothers had when they had heard one thing and understood another— _I like it, having you all around—_ but were deciding not to say anything. “Good night, Crowley,” she said instead.

“Night,” he told her, and then, because the more he said it the easier it got, he added, “thank you.”

_Thank you for coming. For bringing the Them. Thank you for understanding, even when you don’t understand at all, and thanks for accepting us into your lives, miracle or no, as easily as you’d accept anyone else._

Deirdre looked as though she understood that, too, and she switched the bags in her hands so that she could throw one arm around Crowley’s shoulders.

“I’m still sorry about the dishes,” she said against his ear, and Crowley laughed, and then she was climbing into the passenger seat and Crowley was standing in the doorway like some kind of sentimental sap, watching them go.


	6. the stars

The sitting room had emptied by the time Crowley meandered his way back in. He could hear the faraway sounds of conversation in the kitchen, of Newt and Tracey and Aziraphale talking and laughing, but here, in the dim light of the telly, there was only Shadwell.

“Mr Crowley,” he said curtly.

“Sergeant Shadwell,” Crowley responded.

They both looked at the telly in silence.

It was, perhaps understandably, a bit harder to bond with someone you had spent the last forty-odd years lying to about who and what you were, and who had, until relatively recently, believed you were your own son and presumably did not know about any awkward experimental flirtations of the 1960s.

Nothing had ever happened, of course—they had both been manipulating each other for a personal benefit, that much had since become clear—but there had been a lot of, well, devil-may-care smiles and cocked hips aimed at one another, back in the day.

Embarrassing didn’t even begin to cover it.

“Right,” Crowley said, unable to shoulder it any longer, “Well, thanks,” and escaped into the kitchen.

_Thanks for never bringing that up again. That’d just be weird for the both of us._

*

The kitchen was, unsurprisingly, immaculate.

Dishes that had been piled high in the sink had been stacked, sparkling clean, back into their cupboards; little casualties of the meal—a piece of fallen shepherd’s pie smeared along the counter here, a bit of mashed potato ground into the rug there—had been scrubbed from existence.

The only thing set out on the counter now were three shot glasses and a bottle of something neon red, currently clutched in Tracey’s hand.

“Oh, Crowley,” Aziraphale said when he caught sight of him, giggling. “Look, I’ve—I’ve cleaned.”

He looked very proud of himself and a bit drunk, positively delighted that now he could let his powers loose, given that the Youngs had gone. Crowley’s chest had that big warm feeling burrowing down in among his ribs; he tried not to let his own amusement take over his face.

“I see that,” he answered, sliding over to give Aziraphale a kiss to one flushed cheek. “And I see that you’ve been busy clearing out our liquor cabinet as well.”

“Not to worry,” Newt said, toasting with a shot glass Tracey had just poured another shot into. The liqueur smelled like candy apples. “Aziraphale’s promised to sober me up before I have to drive back.”

“A Christmas miracle,” Aziraphale agreed, laughing.

“No, a Thanksgiving miracle!”

“An American miracle!”

“Speaking of,” Crowley interjected, “Where is our American? Feel like I’ve barely seen her all night.”

Newt gestured toward the back door that let out to the garden. “Her mum called. She just needed a moment.”

“She’s got a blanket with her,” Tracey explained, at Crowley’s frown. She shook her bottle of candy apple liqueur enticingly. “Come on, love, have a holiday drink with us. Mister Aziraphale, if you would be so kind?”

Aziraphale obliged with a flourish, miracling a fourth shot glass out of thin air; Newt _oohed_ and _ahhed_ appropriately, and Crowley lost control of his smile entirely. It was a lucky thing Aziraphale was too drunk to try human magic, and had settled for fancy miracles instead.

“Madame Tracey, I’d be honoured,” Crowley said, teasing, hand to his heart. “I’m just going to pop out and check on Anathema first, if you would be so kind as to grant me leave.”

Tracey held the liqueur bottle aloft, as if it were a Sovereign’s Orb, and said, magnanimously, “I grant you leave, as long as you promise to come back and do a double.”

“Don’t tell her the secret!” Newt exclaimed. So he had been telling them all about his plans; no doubt these were pre-celebratory drinks, or else at least “You can’t tell her, it’s supposed to be a surprise!”

“And give us a proper kiss first,” Aziraphale added quickly. “Since you seem to be taking requests.”

Promises of present discretion and future inebriation thus given and secured, and a candy-apple kiss thus bestowed—full of Aziraphale’s giggles and a wolf-whistle from someone who was going to step in something alarmingly wet in bare feet later that night—Crowley slipped out into the garden.

*

The night had indeed grown cold, but Crowley found Anathema wrapped in a miracle of a blanket that would no doubt keep her warm even if the Earth itself froze over. Her mobile was turned off and forgotten in her lap; her face was turned upward to the sky.

“It’s beautiful out here,” she said, hushed, as he approached “The stars are different than the ones back home, though. You don’t think you memorise a thing like that—where the stars are in the sky—until they’re different, suddenly. And then you realise there are all kinds of skies you know nothing about, and all kinds of stars you’ll never see.”

Crowley hummed, settling onto the patio's wicker sofa next to her. Anathema unwound the blanket from her shoulders automatically, arranging half of it over him and huddling in close.

“How’s your mum?” He nodded toward the phone.

“Pfft. Loving Thailand—they had a roast out on the beach for Thanksgiving.” She shrugged, her mouth curling up to a smile. “I think they're finally learning how to be people, though. With Agnes, you know, that wasn’t really a thing our family ever got to be. They were descendants, and then they had me, and knowing what I was going to grow up for—”

Anathema sighed, turning back to the stars. “It’s different now,” she said. “We don’t have to be anything. We can just be.”

“And how are you finding _just being_ , Anathema Device?”

“Hard,” she admitted, and Crowley couldn’t help but chuckle. “I spent my whole life trying to follow what Agnes wanted me to do, and now? It’s just—” she threw out her hands, gesturing at the whole of the sky, the whole of the universe— “there are so many possibilities, so many skies, so many stars, and I feel like I should see them all. It’s hard to know which one to chase after.”

Crowley understood that. He had felt the same way, in the days and weeks after the end of the world: the uncertainty, the confusion, finding oneself suddenly tetherless, directionless, adrift. Not knowing where to go when you’d always been told where and when; not knowing what to do when you’d always been told what and how. Not knowing whether you could cross this line or that; not sure whether this boundary has been set by circumstance, or by choice.

He had dared to step forward, though, shaky as a new lamb, and eventually he’d found new guideposts, new pathways. Eventually he’d found his way _home_.

“Did you know,” he said slowly, “that demons are fallen angels?”

He’d never spoken to anyone about this before, not seriously. Whinged about it plenty of times, sure, and dismissed it outright too, but usually he spoke about it in terms of _falling_ , and never without a joke in his voice. But he thought he could, just now. He thought he could—with a friend.

Anathema nodded, and Crowley went on. “Before, when I was an angel—and mind you keep this to yourself, it’s, you know—”

“Personal?”

“Yeah, sure. Personal. Anyway. I was a great big nobody, when I was an angel. I mean, I wasn’t much of anybody in Hell, either, don’t let the Serpent of Eden thing distract you. But Upstairs, I was just one of the crowd, doing my job like anybody else was. Only my job was—I built the stars.”

“You— _built?”_

“Not all of them,” Crowley hurried to say. “There was a whole team. You take this planet, I’ll grab this nebula. And I didn’t always have as much artistic license as I’d have liked, because by then physics had been invented, and that was a pain in the arse. But, yeah. That’s what I did, as an angel. Before I asked too many questions and got myself cast out. I built the stars.”

Together, they looked up, and Crowley shifted reality just the teeniest bit—douses lights, shoos away clouds, opens the skies just a little wider. The diamond pinpricks of the stars above come into a slightly sharper focus; faded, faraway lights shine just a little brighter, just a little harder, making their light stretch to be seen from Earth.

“You’re such a flash bastard,” Anathema whispered, awed.

Crowley grinned, looking over them all. He hadn’t placed all of them, of course, but he had his favourites. They still shone for him on nights like this.

“The point is,” he went on, “I’ve been there, you know? I’ve seen the all skies and the stars. And there’s a lot out there, and if you want to see them all, have at it. Far be it from me to keep someone from seeing them. But if I’ve learnt anything in six thousand years, in all the things I’ve seen, all the places I’ve been—none of them can hold a candle to the view from right here.”

Anathema looked over at him, her own grin curling at the corner of her mouth. “God, you’re sweet.”

“Yeah, yeah, tell the whole blessed world about it,” Crowley said, jabbing her with the pointiest end of his elbow and ignoring her resultant squeak before going on, serious again. “In the end, though, it’s not about what you think you’re chasing, all right? It’s not about whether you miss opportunities or chances. You will. It’s fine, new ones will come. It’s about—what are you coming back to? Who will be there, waiting?”

“Where’s home,” she supplied, and then her grin broadened. “Maybe even _who‘s_ home. Someone to come back to, to make it all make sense.”

“I suspect you might already have that last bit figured out.”

“May do,” Anathema allowed, and then she leaned in conspiratorially. “Don’t tell him I know, but I think he’s going to propose soon.”

Crowley arched one perfectly surprised eyebrow, and was a little alarmed to find that after these last three years of living without Hell breathing down his back, his pokerface wasn’t as easy to slip into as it used to be. “You think so?”

“Subtlety isn’t exactly his strong suit. It would’ve been nice to have a prophecy about it—” Crowley opened his mouth to protest, but she held up a finger to tell him to _let her finish—_ “But I’m glad it’ll be a surprise. I’m going to cry and everything. Look all splotchy for the pictures on Instagram.”

“No you won’t.” She really wouldn’t. He made sure of that.

“Going to drag my mum out right away for dress shopping. I’m thinking just like, an outrageous amount of lace. And big sleeves. Princess Di won’t have had anything on these sleeves.”

“You’re going to be unbearable, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” Anathema confirmed happily. “Absolutely horrid at all times. I’m going to make you and Aziraphale come to a wedding in Puerto Rico.”

“In—no. No, absolutely not. Have you seen him? He doesn’t tan, Book Girl, he burns. He’ll be one pouty pink sunburnt angel at your wedding. Is that the auspicious beginning you want?”

“Poor angel, can’t even get his husband to miracle him some sunblock.”

“Can’t—I most certainly can! And I will! He’ll be so coated in sunblock you won’t even be able to see him. Just a walking blotch of sunblock, sitting all ghostly and coconut-scented at the end of the aisle. And then I’ll turn into a snake and ruin your buffet.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“I definitely would. I ruined the last supper, I’ll have you know.”

“No you didn’t.”

“Well—I would’ve if I’d have been there. Could’ve swallowed that smarmy little Judas whole, solved us all a lot of problems.”

Anathema laughed, and so did he, and it was nice, this: having humans around he could be himself with. Really be himself, with all the history and all the power, all the funny little snake bits and all the miracling bits, and Anathema and Newt and Tracey and the Them didn’t think a second thing of it. It was simple, and intimate, and Crowley had never expected to be so fully himself with anyone.

Like Anathema had said—he could just _be._

Slowly, Crowley let the stars go back to where they usually sat, let the clouds come back across the sky. He handed Anathema a hot chocolate—with a little buttered rum, because why not—that he hadn’t been holding two seconds ago, and let her shift, pressing her warm shoulder against his.

“I haven’t had a chance to say yet,” Anathema said, quietly, “but thank you.”

She didn’t elaborate, but she didn’t need to. Crowley could hear the dozens of thoughts she might have been having in her head, as clearly as she’d spoken them aloud; he could feel them, sinking into his bones, truths he might have deflected and which he had to accept anyway.

_Thank you for having a Thanksgiving for me, for making sure I had somewhere that could be home when I needed it. Thank you for the stars, and for the hot chocolate, and for making me laugh when I was worried. Thank you for sitting here, and thank you for being here, and thank you for telling me it’ll all be okay._

“Thank you,” Crowley returned softly, and meant all the same things.

They sat for a while longer in the quiet, drinking their cocoa. Every once in a while they heard the laughter from the kitchen, Newt’s voice carrying over Tracey’s or Tracey’s over Aziraphale’s as they got deeper into their cups. The blanket Aziraphale had miracled stayed warm in their laps, and the stars stayed bright in the sky, and there was something like peace settling under the cage of Crowley’s ribs.

“Do you want to know what I was really doing out here?” Anathema asked suddenly, with an uncertain little smile, almost self-deprecating. “I’ll tell you if you promise not to laugh.”

“I absolutely will not make that promise. Goes against the demonic code of conduct.”

“You don’t follow a demonic code of conduct.”

“Sure I do. Every demon does. Involves things like gluing coins to the pavement in central London and laughing at people’s secrets.”

“I was praying,” Anathema said anyway.

Ah.

Crowley did not laugh. Instead he slipped an arm around Anathema’s shoulders, held her properly, warm against the cold of the night, against the endless emptiness of the dark. “Does it help?

Anathema shook her head. “No. I know God’s there—know it better than any human, I mean, look at you and Aziraphale, you’re _proof,_ and we always had Agnes but I was raised Catholic, too, even though we’re all lapsed these days, so I _should_ be pretty good at praying, right? But it’s still just, I dunno, like speaking to ghosts. There’s never any answers from it.”

“I think,” Crowley offered gently, “it’s not really about whether She answers. Or even whether you really think She’s there—even I don’t know for sure, not anymore. It can just be about deciding what questions you really want to ask, what’s important to you to know. Because once you figure that out, the questions themselves sort of _are_ the answers.”

“Didn’t you say you’d been cast out of Heaven for asking too many questions?”

The back door opened, then, and Aziraphale and Newt appeared, waving them in back in to the warm light spilling across the patio, laughing, calling for them to come take a shot, to come steal the rest of the apple pie, to come inside and get warmed up. Their faces were beacons in the dark, smiling and happy and simple, and Crowley squeezed Anathema to him a moment before standing and offering her a hand up.

“I was,” Crowley said. “And look how many answers I have now.”


	7. love

The front door closed, and the cottage was, finally, quiet.

The dining table had been shrunk back to its original size and its tablescape put back away into the ether it’d come from. The third sofa disappeared from the sitting room, no longer needed, and so did the games table. Leftovers they’d never eat disappeared from the fridge; the last slice of apple pie, on the other hand, multiplied neatly into three.

The last round of hugs had been given—Anathema had hugged Crowley hard, and long, and whispered _thank you_ in his ear one last time, just to make him awkward at the last minute—and Newt had been sobered—“God, that’s unpleasant—” and Crowley and Aziraphale had watched, standing at the window, as the last of their friends drove away.

“They’ll get home safe,” Aziraphale said into the dark, and they would.

Crowley wrapped an arm around Aziraphale’s waist, pulling him into a loose hold. “What did you think of our first Thanksgiving, angel? Not that scary after all, was it?”

“No,” Aziraphale admitted, sinking back into Crowley’s arms. “It was rather lovely, didn’t you think?”

“I did think.”

“Did Anathema say anything to you, by the way? About Newt? He’s awfully worried that she’s got him figured out.”

“Oh, she does. Not the details, of course, he should definitely still be able to surprise her, but she’s got him figured. Says she’s going to make us go to a wedding in Puerto Rico next year.”

“Hmm. I’ve never been to Puerto Rico.”

“Really? It’s nice, you’ll like it. Food’s good. Hot, though.”

“You like hot.”

Crowley did like hot. He thought he might like Aziraphale in the heat too—dressed in linen with a loose collar and a wide-brimmed hat to protect him from the sun, not that he really needed it, with skin that tasted like the sea and a mouth that tasted like pineapple. He thought he might like Aziraphale pink and sweaty, a little drunk with happiness and rum punch, laughing at every turn and dancing clumsily across a dance floor and celebrating their friends— _their family—_ as they embarked on a journey of their own.

Aziraphale turned in Crowley’s arms, reaching up to tuck a rogue piece of hair behind his ear, an indulgent smile on his lips that said he was probably thinking much the same things.

Crowley caught Aziraphale’s hand in his own, pressed delicate kisses to all his fingertips before releasing him again. He might have suggested spending the rest of the evening on the sofa, watching whatever they could find on the telly; it was the perfect night to laze about a little. He might have suggested one more glass of wine, eating the rest of the pie right out of the tin at the kitchen counter, or heading back out onto the patio to watch the stars together, but—

“I’m exhausted,” he admitted. He felt like he could sink into Aziraphale’s arms right here, just lay his head down onto that strong shoulder and let himself be borne away into the arms of sleep. “Better head up to bed before you have to carry me, angel.”

Aziraphale hummed, and wrapped his arms a little tighter around Crowley’s frame. “I would, you know.”

“I know you would,” Crowley grinned against his neck, tucking himself in close. “Come up with me?”

“Of course.”

It was another long moment before they disentangled from each other, fingertips catching on fingertips, sneaking kisses onto this temple, that shoulder. The big wide-open ache was back in Crowley’s chest, pressing on him from the inside, but it was all right.

Aziraphale was there too, warm and wanting, pressing back.

*

Crowley slid into bed and exhaled heavily, comfortable and tired, the sheets perfectly cool on his bare feet. He felt heavy, and slow, and secure, and he slid across the pillows to press his nose to Aziraphale’s hip and inhaled deeply.

Aziraphale’s hand was in his hair a moment later, soft and gentle. “All right, dear?”

“Mmm.” He was the very definition of all right. “Are you?”

“Mm. Perfectly.”

As tired as Crowley was, he was surprised that he didn’t drift off to sleep right away. It was fairly common for him to curl up next to Aziraphale like this, while Aziraphale paged through whatever trash novel masquerading as highbrow literature by virtue of a blank hardcover that he happened to be reading, and let himself sink away into oblivion, but tonight he stayed buoyed on the surface of deep waters, shifting with the waves of one thought and the next.

After a half an hour or so, Aziraphale laid his book aside. “I can hear you thinking,” he murmured, stroking a finger along the shell of Crowley’s ear. “I thought you said you were tired.”

Crowley sighed, shuffled closer. “I am. Just—can’t get my thoughts to settle, I guess. M’not even thinking about anything in particular, I’m just. Stuck thinking.”

Aziraphale hummed. A moment later, the light from his bedside lamp had faded away into the dark, and Aziraphale had slid himself under the covers properly, pulling Crowley close to rest on his chest, stroking a comforting hand up and down his spine. “Just close your eyes,” he whispered. “I’ve got you.”

“Thank you,” Crowley whispered back, and then he thought, _oh._

Maybe that’s what was missing. Maybe that was the final piece of the puzzle, the final thing he needed to say. Maybe that was what he’d been building toward all night: the last _thank you_ , and the one that mattered most.

He nuzzled against Aziraphale’s chest, finding the steady thrum of the heartbeat kept beneath those ribs, and said it again. “Thank you.” Pressed a kiss to the skin above that heart, to the white-and-blue striped cotton, to the familiar scent of paper and ink. “Thank you.” Curled his hands around that neck, so soft and delicate and stronger than anything Crowley’s ever known before, pressed his face into the hollow there between jaw and shoulder, breathed in, breathed out. “Thank you.”

Aziraphale’s hand came to rest at the small of Crowley’s back, large and gentle, protective and sheltering. “Crowley—”

“It’s all right,” Crowley cut off, nudging his next kiss into the hinge of Aziraphale’s jaw, pressing himself closer and closer. “I’m just saying thank you.”

A kiss under Aziraphale’s ear, a kiss to the rise of a cheekbone, a kiss to the hollow of an eye, so soft and delicate over an eyelid. Aziraphale shivered, his breath stuttering. “For—for what?”

 _For what?_ It was a harder question now than it had been all night, a more complicated question, ringing along Crowley’s bones, and he wondered if he even knew the words for all of it, if it could even be spoken in the ways he knew how to speak. The depth of it seemed endless; the brilliance of it seemed blinding. _For what?_

“For this,” Crowley said, and his kiss finally found Aziraphale’s.

Aziraphale’s mouth opened under his, apparently eager to follow through on the kisses that had trailed up from his chest, but Crowley held back, kept it light, kept it slow and careful, almost cautious. This was not a kiss meant to delve deeper and deeper, meant to lead from one thing to the next—this was a kiss meant only as a kiss, as its own moment, suspended in time.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale said again, as he drew back and nudged his nose against Aziraphale’s. “You don’t need—”

“There’s a lot I’ve never said to you,” Crowley interrupted. “Years and years worth of things I couldn’t say. Millenia. Things I couldn’t say and you couldn’t hear and we couldn’t talk about.”

Aziraphale laid back against the pillow, studying him, and that large, warm hand made its way back up and down Crowley’s spine again. “I knew, though. I always knew, darling. The same as you knew.”

And Crowley had known, of course he’d known, and for the last three years that had been enough. The knowledge in his chest, tied to the knowledge in Aziraphale’s, the understanding passed between them breath to breath—it had been enough.

But it wasn’t, just now. The ache in Crowley’s chest was too much, too big, too expansive. He had held these things for so long they had become part of the very fibre of his being, and now they were fraying away, searching for something solid and real to hold and wind around, to knit back into place.

“Let me,” Crowley said, soft against the skin of Aziraphale’s cheek, his neck, the pulse in his throat. “I want to.”

Aziraphale shifted beneath him, watching him for any hint of something untoward, but eventually he sighed and simply hauled Crowley a little closer, stroking that large hand up and down his spine once more. “All right,” he said, softly. “All right.”

There were so many things Crowley wanted to say, given permission. So many things clamouring for his attention. There were words crowding into his mouth, and feelings he could not put into words; there were moments he wanted to revisit, memories he’d turned over in his mind, in the centuries since they’d passed, each one worn smooth and shining with long nights of remembering.

He wanted to line them up now like sea glass, foundling moments weathered in Crowley’s heart, and lay them out one-by-one so Aziraphale could _know_.

“Thank you,” he finally began, capturing Aziraphale’s free hand in the sheets and twining their fingers together, “for that first day, in Eden. For giving away your flaming sword. For standing with me there on the wall. For being so terribly charming that I was smitten, without ever having been smote down.

“If you’re going to make puns—”

“And thank you,” Crowley said over him, huffing a laugh, keeping a grip on Aziraphale’s hand as he tried to pull it away, “for your wing over me, that day.”

Aziraphale stopped protesting, and shot Crowley a rather withering glare. “I could hardly have done anything else.”

“I know. That’s the point. Hereditary enemies, and here you are, holding a wing over, against the first rain? It didn’t matter to you, just then, whether it was the right or wrong thing to do. It was the _kind_ thing to do, and you did it. Thank you.”

A kiss to the back of Aziraphale’s hand, deliberate and careful; a kiss to his wrist. Aziraphale breathes in, like he wants to say something, his gaze fixed on Crowley’s mouth, Crowley’s eyes, Crowley’s fingers, moving down his arm, and then breathes out. His eyes softened, watching Crowley and watching Crowley,

There are other things to say, other moments to bring out and hold up to the light. Crowley says them all, one by one, pressing a kiss to the pulse in Aziraphale’s wrist, to the tender inside of his elbow, to the spot just above his armpit, on one broad shoulder. Aziraphale submits to them all, silent and watchful, letting Crowley cover him in gratitude made flesh—kisses filled with whispers, with memories, with thanks.

_Thank you for standing with me, when the rains turned to floods and the waters rose._

_Thank you for watching with me, outside Jerusalem, so neither of us had to bear witness alone._

_Thank you for distracting me in Rome, trading depravities for oysters and wine, laughing as you went pink in the cheeks and I fell even more impossibly in love._

Buttons came undone, and Aziraphale’s chest heaved as Crowley kissed down the sternum, laying thanks with warm, seeking hands and a gentle mouth, _thank you for finding me, in the fog and the damp, and for the Arrangement, for tankards of ale instead of swordfights in the mist._

Aziraphale’s hands were in Crowley’s hair, welcoming and soothing; Crowley’s hands were on acres of skin, and a corporation he loved so well it felt like drowning, nosing into all of Aziraphale’s ticklish spots and feeling the wiggles and giggles reverberating through him like a bell, _thank you for going to Edinburgh, even though we both knew the coin toss was a cheat, and Hamlet wasn’t really that bad._

There were tiny white hairs here, flitting in a line down Aziraphale’s belly; there was a navel, carved from blankness, never used to nourish by a mother. There were folds and valleys, curves and lines, white rivers scarred across hips, disappearing into the waistband of Aziraphale’s pyjamas, and each one was a revelation against Crowley’s mouth, a prophecy of things to come and so many things that had gone before, _thank you for the crepes, and for the laugh, and the pink little shoes I never forgot; thank you for the bookshop, and all the glasses of wine, and for caring enough about me to tell me no._

“Darling,” Aziraphale said, breathless, stopping Crowley from slipping his pyjamas down his thighs, “come here.”

Crowley went, slithering up Aziraphale’s body to lend kisses to his mouth, and Aziraphale kissed him, and kissed him, and kissed him back, and suddenly there were words Crowley had never heard either, things he’d known but never known from the outside in, things like _thank you for rescuing me_ and _thank you for trusting me,_ things like _I’d never seen anything so beautiful as you hobbling along through that church, I’d never seen anything I’d wanted more than you in the front seat of your car,_ things like, _I wasn’t sure if you knew how much I loved you, I wasn’t sure if you loved me too—_

“Of course I bloody loved you,” Crowley gasped, pushed back against the pillows, Aziraphale heavy and gorgeous between his legs, kissing all the same places, whispering all the same _thank yous,_ mouth hot and hands busy and it was like the big, aching thing in Crowley’s chest had grown beyond him, leaving his confines to pull Aziraphale into its orbit too, “Loved you from the very start, I’ll always love you—”

“Yes,” Aziraphale returned, kissing him deeply, rolling his hips, “yes, I love you like that, I’ll love you like that—”

“You _do_ , angel, you _do_ — _”_

Flesh met flesh; fire met fire. Crowley dug his fingernails into the back of Aziraphale’s neck, into the curve of his hip, urging him closer, urging him faster, the big aching thing expanding and expanding along his spine, sparking like gunpowder and magnesium, spinning out a pinwheel, the word so thick now in his mouth he could barely think, spilling out of him all at once, “Thank you for finding me, thank you for coming to me, for standing with me there at the end, angel, fuck, thank—thank—for coming home, for coming back—”

Aziraphale groaned, deep and unsteady against Crowley’s mouth, swallowing down the syllables as the pace quickened, as thighs flexed and hands sought and he moved and moved and moved, clasping and clutching and dragging them closer, closer, closer, Aziraphale’s voice against his tongue, “Always, always, always coming back to you—”

“Thank you,” Crowley wrenched out, more breath than sound, his spine wrestling him up off the mattress, his hips wrestling him up against Aziraphale’s, closer and closer and closer and closer, “ _thank you—_ ”

—and then there was nothing but a starburst, slamming into him, slamming into them both, ripping through tensing muscles and huge white and black wings, dissolving into waves and waves and waves of light.

*

“Mmmph,” Crowley said.

“Quite,” Aziraphale said, still a little breathless.

They lay side by side in the dark, legs still tangled, sweat shining in the hollows and sticky across their bellies. Aziraphale’s hand found his in the sheets, and for a moment they were quiet, looking up at the ceiling, remembering how to fit their bodies into their own boundaries.

Eventually one of them managed it, or the other; Crowley wasn’t sure, really, but the sticky disappeared, and Aziraphale was drinking long drags from a glass of water before pressing it into Crowley’s hands.

“Thank you,” Crowley said, reflexively, and Aziraphale looked at him, waiting patiently for him to hand the glass back before bearing him back down to the pillows, the pair of them a pile of loose limbs and fingers looking for something to hang onto.

The knot of that big aching thing in Crowley’s chest had shrunk again, back into the space where it lived beneath his ribs, bloody and raw and beautiful, but he could feel it pulsing, ringing through his chest and into Aziraphale’s, hearing the slow, steady beat of Aziraphale calling back. Crowley closed his eyes, and tucked his nose into Aziraphale’s neck, and found, once more, that softly rolling sea that would pull him into dreaming.

“You know you don’t need to thank me for anything,” Aziraphale whispered into Crowley’s hair, once the dark had quieted again, just before Crowley dipped beneath the surface into sleep. “You don’t need to be grateful to me. I love you—I can’t do anything but love you. I’m not made for anything else.”

“Nonsense,” Crowley yawned, snuggling closer. “You’re made for books, and for hosting Thanksgiving dinners, and for being an arse to the petty ladies at the fabric store. And for sunny afternoons, and for cold mornings, and for dining at the Ritz, and for little restaurants where they know you, and—”

“Hush,” Aziraphale said, laughing gently, rocking Crowley with the movement of his chest. “I do all those things while loving you, you know.”

“I know,” Crowely answered, grinning, and he did. “The thankfulness—it’s not because I _owe_ you or anything. It just _is_. I’m happy and you’re here and we’re together, in this life, and we have this home and all this family, and I’m—I’m just happy. I’m thankful. Can’t a demon be a little thankful sometimes?”

“You have to admit it is a little unusual, at least.”

“Hush yourself. It’s exactly usual. I’ve been grateful to you for our whole lives. For—for being here, with me. For loving me, in exactly the way I love you. S’just a fact, angel. Can’t argue with it.”

“That’s just me being selfish,” Aziraphale argued. “I’m here because I can’t stand not to be. I’m in love with you because I can’t be any way else.”

“So? I can be grateful to you for being a selfish bastard. It’s worked out for me so far.” He pressed a tired, sloppy kiss to Aziraphale’s jaw. “Selfish bastards wouldn’t have saved the world just so they could have gravlax with dill sauce again.”

Aziraphale considered this. “The gravlax is awfully good,” he allowed, “but that’s not why I saved the world. Well, _tried_ to save the world, anyway, Adam did most of the actual saving.”

“No? Why did you, then?”

“Don’t know you?” Aziraphale asked, and he kissed Crowley again, properly this time, slow and deep with the curve of a smile still on his mouth, pulling him closer under the sheets, and then he pressed his forehead to Crowley’s, breathing him in. “Because this is where you are.”

_Because this is where we met. Because this is where we live. Because these are the streets we want to walk, and the people we want to know, and there’s so much more left for them to do and know and discover and believe. Because it’s about questions, and finding the answers; because it’s about choice, and who we choose to be._

_Because it’s about love._

_Isn’t everything?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who read this fic, and to fandom, and to the best beans in the world - I would not have made it through pandemic without all of you. If there's anything I've learned this year, it's just that everything really, truly is about the love.   
> xx Darcy

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on Tumblr @[forineffablereasons](http://forineffablereasons.tumblr.com)!


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